Tech Blog

[#1]

There are many iPhone and iPod touch games out there and working out which are worth the money is a challenge, so here I am again with another round-up of reviews, weighing in on Cows in Space, Ramp Champ, Annie's Wild Shot, and Chronicles of Inotia: Legend of Feanor.

Cows in Space (Donut Games) –$0.99 – iTunes link

Sort of an upside-down Peggle—and you know how much you love Peggle—but it's not quite perfect. You slide a ship back and forth across the bottom of the screen and have to fire bullets to bump cows floating in bubbles into floating stars—with obstacles making things difficult for you. The main issue is that unlike Peggle the aspect of luck that is inherent feels frustrating (due to the extremely limited ammo) and so beating a level feels more like a relief than a reward in some cases. Still, if you're all done with Peggle and are desperate for something at least slightly similar… 2.5/5

Ramp Champ (The Iconfactory) - $1.99 – iTunes link

This has eaten up more time than anything else I've played on my iPod touch recently, and I don't like that! A skee-ball game with a peerless graphical design plus achievements and tickets to redeem for (pointless but pretty) prizes to keep you coming back, Ramp Champ would be perfect if the ball phsyics were more easily understood—it's hard if not impossible to make the same shot more than once (quite unlike skee-ball) which makes many of the achievements incredibly frustrating. I can't stop playing, though I should note that many others prefer Skee-Ball (iTunes link). 3.5/5

Annie's Wild Shot (Tecmo Ltd.) - $3.99 –iTunes link

At $3.99 this is on the pricey end of the library for a game this simplistic, as Annie's Wild Shot is a basic touch-shooter. However, it's a very lovely one, full of the kind of polish you'd expect from a commercial Japanese video game, with great sketchy artwork, a good variety of missions and particularly excellent end-of-level bosses. Naturally like most touch shooters it's a bit easy (and therefore over a bit quickly) so while at a lower price it'd be unmissable right now you'd really need to love shooters. Keep your eyes open for a sale! 3/5

Chronicles of Inotia: Legend of Feanor (Com2uS) - $2.99 – iTunes link

I picked this up ages ago but could never quite get myself to the point where I wanted to play it, as an RPG is a fairly big commitment on the little handheld, and I kept getting distracted by things like Ramp Champ. Now there's a sequel out, I decided to visit this (much cheaper) original, and I realize that this game isn't much of a commitment at all, as it's a pretty simple point to move or fight dungeon hack with nice (if jerky) pixel graphics. With a lot of grinding to level-up, not much in the way of a story and quests little more than "collect X", it feels like an MMO without any other players--awful lonely and nothing special. 1.5/5